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New Braunfels Herald Zeitung (Newspaper) - May 22, 2005, New Braunfels, Texas
Page 2A — Herald-Zeitung — Sunday, May 22, 2005Attempts to change admissions rule stumble in Senate
AUSTIN (AP)—An attempt to change the state’s top IO percent university admissions law was dealt a major blow Saturday when the proposal Med in a Senate committee and a key lawmaker declared the issue dead for the session.
The vote likely killed any chance of changing the law, which some state universities have said restricts their ability to recruit students, said Education Committee Chairwoman Florence Shapiro, R-Plano. The legislative session ends May 30.
“Well, that's that for another two years,’’ a frustrated Shapiro said after a 3-3 committee vote that kept. “It’s dead. I wanted to keep it moving along so we could debate it on the floor.”
Approved in 1997, the law guarantees all students who graduate in the top IO percent of their classes admission to the public university of their choice. Supporters of the rule, many of them minority lawmakers, have championed it as a means of increasing minority enrollment at state universities.
While the Senate has agreed to make those students take tougher courses to qualify, the House has voted to allow universities to accept only 50 percent of their freshman classes under the admissions rule.From staff, wire reports
TEXASTEMPLE
GATESVILLE OFFICER AMONG THOSE ARRAIGNED IN BANK ROBBERY - A police officer in the Central Texas town of Gatesville was one of three people arrested in connection with the September robbery of a bank.
Wesley John Friedrich, 23, was arraigned Friday afternoon. The Gatesville patrol officer was fired the same day, said Gatesville Police Chief Nathan Gohlke. Gohlke said that he was surprised “to say the least" by Friedrich’s arrest.
Friedrich, an officer there since August 2004, was charged with being an accessory after the fact or knowing that the robbery occurred and assisting the alleged offenders.
Friedrich’s wife, 22-year-old Luisa Marie Friedrich, was also
arraigned Friday before U.S. Magistrate Jeffrey C. Manske. A third defendant, Adam Christopher Edwards, was arraigned Thursday.
Federal officials have charged Luisa Friedrich and Edwards with bank robbery.
NATIONSEATTLE
MARY KAY LETOURNEAU MARRIES FORMER STUDENT
— Mary Kay Letourneau, whose notorious seduction of 12-year-old boy led to more than seven years in prison, has married the former student she was convicted of raping.
Letourneau, 43, andVili Fualaau, 22, exchanged vows they had written themselves during a tightly guarded ceremony Friday night, said Janet Anilino, co-executive producer of the TV show “Entertainment Tonight.”
The couple have been in the spotlight since Letourneau was
imprisoned in 1997. But when she was released last August, the couple — who have two daugh ters together — reunited.
The ceremony was at the Columbia Winery in Woodinville, about 20 miles northeast of Seattle, Anilino said.
“Mary Kay was whisked out of the hotel to this venue under intense security,” she said. “She arrived here with a sheet over her head. She had to lie down in the car coming in to avoid the paparazzi.”
WORLDBAGHDAD, Iraq
SUNNIS JOIN FORCES TO CREATE ORGANIZATION TO REPRESENT THE MINORITY
— A thousand Sunnis assembled in the Iraqi capital Saturday and formed an alliance of religious, political and tribal groups to push for a stronger role in the country’s Shiite-dominated
power structure.
With sectarian tension and violence on the rise, the new organization immediately called for the resignation of the interior minister, a Shiite whose office, it said, had a role in killing several Sunni clerics.
Bayan Jabr, the minister, denied allegations government involvement in the killings and said he would not step down.
“No one has the right to call for the resignation of a minister, only parliament can do that. Those who didn’t get one vote have no right to ask,” he said, referring to the fact that many Sunnis stayed away from Jan. 30 elections either in protest or fear of attacks.
In violence Saturday, eight members of an elite Interior Ministry force known as tile Wolf Brigade were killed in a pre-dawn ambush on their 20-vehicle convoy in downtown Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad, police 1st Lt. Nadar Adil said. The Sunnis blame the Wolf Brigade, among other groups, in the killings of their clerics.
Senate sends gay marriage ban to Texas voters
AUSTIN (AP) — The Senate approved a proposed constitutional ban on same-sex marriages in Texas on Saturday, sending the issue to voters to decide.
If approved in a statewide vote in November, Texas would join 14 states that statutorily and constitutionally ban same-sex marriage. Massachusetts is the only state that allows such marriages, aJthougli Vermont and Connecticut have approved same-sex civil unions.
State law already prohibits
same-sex marriages. This amendment would define marriage as between one man and one woman. The I louse narrowly passed the proposal last month.
“I believe we should protect the institution of marriage. We should hold that up higher than any other relationship,” said Sen. Todd Staples, R-Palestine, the sponsor of the amendment.
Senate Democrats had hoped to get enough votes to block the measure from being debated on the Senate floor,
but three Democrats — Ken Armbrister of Victoria, Eddie Lucio of Brownsville and Frank Madia of San Antonio — all voted to bring the bill up, giving supporters the critical 21 -vote majority they needed.
The bill ultimately passed by the same margin.
In a little more than two hours of debate, Staples rejected arguments the amendment would discriminate against gays and lesbians and the estimated 43,000 same-sex couples in Texas.
Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Hous-
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ton, equated the amendment to Jim Crow era laws that discriminated against blacks.
“At least they had the good sense to never write their bigotry into the state Constitution," said Ellis, who called the amendment “trash.”
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Members of the Canyon white team watch Tuesday night's scrimmage from the sideline.
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